Inside the Star

Two angry young men, two guns, two broken-hearted mothers

Sharon Reddick and Tina Khan believed their boys died together on the Danforth one night in March, victims of a “targeted” shooting. Last week, police announced that both had drawn guns, killing each other.

Sharon Reddick, a family support worker, holds photos of her slain son, Shawn Chestnut-Reddick, in the hallway of her apartment building, taken in 1992 and 2001. Shawn was only 22 when he was killed in a shootout on the Danforth on March 19. When Shawn was a boy, she said, she would not let him play with any guns, and deplores gun violence.

He was being carried off the ambulance as Tina Khan arrived at St. Michael’s Hospital, and for a fleeting moment, amid the blur of rushing medical staff, she caught a glimpse of her son.

Jonathan Khan was laid out on a stretcher, his bloodied body broken. Seven bullets, fired from a handgun at close range, had riddled his upper body. He was dying.

But Tina Khan, summoned to the hospital by a frantic call from her daughter, did not register the wounds, or entertain any outcome but survival. She fixated instead on a single detail.

“His eyes were open,” she said. “When I saw that, it was a relief to me. I thought he was going to be OK.

“That’s why, when they came in and said he didn’t make it, I was in total shock and disbelief. I couldn’t accept it.”

A few hours later, just a few blocks away, Sharon Reddick got a call at work from the concierge at her condo. Two police officers were waiting in the lobby, asking for her.

“My heart was beating,” she said. “Something was telling me, this is not good.”

The officers soon confirmed the worst. Her son, Shawn Chestnut-Reddick, was dead.

When their sons were fatally shot on a Danforth sidewalk on the night of March 19, Khan and Reddick’s lives became inextricably linked through shared tragedy.

That night, both of the single mothers lost their only sons, each woman’s youngest child. At 20 and 22, Jonathan and Shawn were no longer boys and not yet men. They were both new fathers — one to an 18-month-old daughter, the other a 2-year-old son.

One is the tough-looking, angry young men staring out from their mug shots. These are the Shawn and Jonathan “known to police.”

Shawn is indeed well acquainted. As his lawyer, Robert Costello puts it, “his rap sheet is long,” and includes, within the past few years, assault, failure to comply with house arrest, and obstructing a peace officer. He served time in several Ontario jails.

In June 2013, police arrested Jonathan and another man for robbery and carrying $1,905, property police alleged was obtained by crime. Both charges were withdrawn in October.

Reddick and Khan say they had never heard of each other’s sons, but police say the men ran in the same social circles and had an ongoing feud prior to their “chance encounter” on the Danforth.

Witness testimony, surveillance tapes and information gleaned from the Centre of Forensic Sciences told police the men threw fists before drawing their weapons in what became a modern day Western shoot-out.

While a .38 revolver was found on the sidewalk, a 9mm semi-automatic was taken from the scene. Police are still seeking the man witnessed fleeing the scene on foot with the weapon.

Khan and Reddick knew this side of their sons. Shawn was a mouthy kid since Grade 2, said Reddick, and a troubled teenager who stopped attending school regularly at 15. For years, she had oscillated between supporting her son and showing him “tough love”: letting him stay in her house before kicking him out, posting his bail sometimes, calling the cops on him others.

Khan said she was “absolutely” worried her Jonathan might be heading down the wrong path; that she fretted about him all the time, about the kids he was hanging around with.

“Maybe there was things going on that I didn’t recognize,” Khan says. “I’m wondering, what could I have done? What did I not see?”

In the wake of the news about their boys, Khan and Reddick are acutely aware of the versions of their sons the world now sees, and how they are viewed as parents.

Last week, Khan rushed to police headquarters after learning Toronto police were holding a press conference to announce the homicides had been solved. She and Reddick both say were not informed about the findings ahead of time. Det. Shawn Mahoney, one of the officers on the case, could not be reached for comment.

Looking back, Khan doesn’t know what compelled her to charge into the station, a framed photo of her son in hand. She believes it may have been desperation to present a different version of the son and the family he came from.

“Jonathan had loving parents,” she said of herself and her late husband, Tony, who died in a car crash when her son was 16. “You do your best with what you have, and sometimes you can’t control, as a parent, what goes on outside your home.”

Reddick, too, is eager for people to understand her family’s story.

“It’s not like Shawn didn’t come from a family that didn’t love, care for him and guide him,” she said. “I don’t want the world to think that his mother is not suffering.”

SEPARATELY, KHAN AND Reddick offer up the same information about life after their son’s death. Neither can sleep. When they do, it’s when their body succumbs to the exhaustion.

Neither can be alone. Khan has had a close family friend living in her home since her son’s death. Reddick is “living like a gypsy,” bouncing around from her mother’s home in Barrie to a friend’s house, to her daughter’s, then back again.

Both hold tight to recent messages left behind from their sons, who they describe as loving and devoted sons. For Reddick, it’s a text she has saved as a picture on her cellphone.

“Good nite son… love u,” she wrote on Dec. 16.

“Love u too mom pray for me,” he wrote.

For Tina, it’s the card Jonathan tucked inside the bouquet of flowers he gave her on her last birthday. “To my number one, from your number one,” the card read.

Both moms lament broken plans, some immediate. A dinner date scheduled for two days after the shooting. Tickets to an upcoming Raptors game. Birthdays. Mother’s Day.

More painful is the long term. Despite the challenges, the mothers had hope their sons would find meaningful work, and provide for their young families. Shawn’s son, Kason, is 2. Jonathan’s daughter, Jaylah, is 18 months.

Shawn, who had First Nations heritage, was enrolled in a work program for aboriginal youth through Anishnawbe Health Toronto. Jonathan was in an apprenticeship program run through St. Steven’s Community House, learning carpentry.

“These are two young kids being raised without a father now,” said Reddick, of Shawn and Jonathan’s children, “because of violence in the streets.”

THERE ARE QUESTIONS that nag at Reddick and Khan, about what transpired on the night of March 19, what could have driven their sons to draw weapons and shoot.

Both are grappling to accept that their sons were carrying guns at all, and they cannot conceive of what disagreement could be so heated it could lead to death.

One question looms especially large.

“How is it that our boys know where to go and get a gun?” asks Khan.

“I raised my son to know that guns were made to kill, and they have one purpose and one purpose only,” Reddick said.

But, she acknowledges, “when you’re on the streets, it’s a total different story than what you’re taught at home.”

In the weeks since their sons’ death, the mothers have each wondered about each other. They may be open to meeting one day, but not now.

“I don’t know her, and she doesn’t know me,” said Khan. “She’s a woman, a mother, and she’s a victim, too, just like I am. She’s mourning the loss of her son. It’s horrible that our kids ended up killing each other.”

“My condolences to her,” said Reddick. “I know she’s feeling just as crushed as I’m feeling. Regardless of how it transpired … the fact still remains that we have two mothers that are victims here.”